omaluvs2quilt

Yes, the small hole needle plate also helps : )

Bataplai

I am by no means an expert, still learning here. From what I've learned, once your feed dogs are down changing your stitch length makes no difference. I never change any of my settings for FMQ (including tension). When I've had that problem, it's because I wasn't moving the quilt at the right speed to match the machine. Don't give up!

quiltmom04

First of all it looks like your tension is way off. Sometimes just retreading, or brushing out your bobbins case will do the trick. But as far as you motion, that looks pretty good. Remember YOU are controlling the speed of the machine and the size of the stitches. What I generally tell students that have taken my FMQ classes, is to practice drawing a meander on a piece of a paper a few times. It kind of gets into your head what you want to do. And as far as the stitch size, picture a dot-to-dot in a kids book. If the dots are farther apart , the line is not as smoothly round. If there are more points, the line can be nicely rounded, even though the lines between the points is actually straight. It helps to remember that as you move your work around. If you stitches are getting too big, speed up the machine, and slow down moving the fabric. If your stitches are too small - move the fabric a bit faster. You are going for a stitch size about the same as you would piece with. Oh yes - remember to to relax and have fun!!

solstice3

as others have said it is a tension issue. It is a very pretty piece, though

tlpa

I also have been so frustrated while trying to learn FMQ. Tension has never been right...then...I brought 3 of my machines in to be tuned..their normal check ups. When I got them back I wanted to test each one to make sure tension was right (last time I brought them back from repair I didn't test them and discovered 6 months down the road it didn't seem they were ever worked on..bummer..never again!). I started testing by doing FMQ with an early 90's Pfaff. I was excited that the FMQ was better than it ever had been before..straight stitch tension was fine..let me check the next one...an early 90's Bernina. FMQ stitch quality was even better than the Pfaff..., then lastly, check my old Bernina 931 (70's?) and the FMQ stitch quality was BEAUTIFUL!!! I was ecstatic! This is all to say...do you have another machine you can try it on? I even think my old Singer 15-91 might have a fantastic stitch if I could find a darning foot for it. I didn't touch the tension on any of these machines, put the feed dogs down and put stitch length to "0". My thought is perhaps these older mechanical machines are less fussy about tension and might handle FMQ better. It was such a relief for me to know that it wasn't all me...the machine I was working on really had a big part in making this a success. Don't give up! It isn't all a problem with how you are doing it.

cricket_iscute

That's a tension problem. You probably have to loosen your top tension. Do take that quilting out because it may not hold anyhow. FMQ isn't fast or easy to learn and you are doing fine. I did that when I was learning.

amh

It looks to me like you have forgotten to lower the pressure foot.

That is exactly what happens to me when I forget to lower the foot. The good news is -- it's easy to pull out.

Hope this helps.

ArchaicArcane

It's definitely tension related. Your stitching is beautiful, so once you have the tension figured out, I think you'll love the FMQ.

Assuming that your tension setting is 0 - 9 for the needle thread tension, 9 is extremely tight. You should be breaking the top thread instead of having eyelashes on the bottom. If it's to 30 or something, then it's probably not enough needle thread tension.

I had to look a second time at the photos, but I don't think your upper threading is right (again, assuming that 9 is the tightest setting on your tension dial)

In your photo, you have the occasional loose thread on the top as well. There's a lot of thread being pulled through without enough regulation. I think that your tension disks aren't holding the thread enough. Either there's fluff holding them apart, hence your need to crank up the tension setting, or the thread is just laying in the tensioner, not right in between the disks.

ETA: or as others have mentioned, the presser foot is up, and you're effectively sewing with 0 tension.

Clean your tension disks on the top (a little dental floss helps) , make sure the bobbin thread is leaving the case in the correct direction, drop your thread tension to about midway and rethread the machine.

When I thread, I do it in a weird way (which breaks the "rule" of threading always with your presser foot up) but I don't have issues with the tension disks not having a good grip on the thread.

1. Thread the machine with the presser foot up until you've threaded through the tension disks
2. Drop the presser foot
3. Grab both sides of thread as it enters and leaves the tension disks
4. give a gentle tug so that they're fully seated into the tension disks (if the thensioner is one of the "exposed" ones like on the older machines, and the thread makes a "V" going in and coming out of the tensioner, you can tell by how close the threads are to each other if they're fully seated)
5. Raise the presser foot, and continue threading the rest of the machine.

With my very limited experience with FMQ, I find I tend to have to lower my needle thread tension a smidge from regular sewing on some machines, but if you lower at this point without finding the actual source of the problem, you'll end up with nests.

ETA: What machine are you using to do this? If I can see a photo of it, I can help with the tension settings.

Additionally, here's a test you can try to figure out which thread tension is giving you fits:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...ml#post5941686

leightred

Remember the adjustments, to the right is tighting and to the left is loosing: righty-tighty and lefty-loosey

Sewbeeit2

BoBbin was probably in backwards or not in correctly..this happened to me twice...we are now using bobbins with the magnet core so this does not happen again.....